Outbound dialling in the UK: Ofcom, the ICO and Genesys Cloud campaigns

Two sets of rules shape outbound calling in the UK. Ofcom's statement of policy on persistent misuse, published in December 2016 and applying from 1 March 2017, explains how Ofcom uses its powers against calls that cause unnecessary annoyance or anxiety, including abandoned and silent calls. It is a statement of how Ofcom prioritises enforcement, setting out the factors it considers, rather than a rule book of fixed limits, so it rewards organisations that can show they have thought about each risk.

The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations, enforced by the ICO, add the rules for marketing calls: screening against the Telephone Preference Service, respecting people who have told you not to call, presenting a number people can call back, and specific consent for automated calls. Ofcom's guidance on caller ID adds requirements for the number you present. Together they decide how a Genesys Cloud outbound campaign should be configured, whichever dialling mode it uses.

Ofcom describes an abandoned call as one made with a view to the recipient speaking to a live agent where, instead, no agent is available, and a silent call as one where the recipient hears nothing or is disconnected as they answer. Both are commonly caused by predictive diallers and answering machine detection, which can mistake a person for a machine. Ofcom treats abandoned calls as misuse where they are caused by anything within the calling party's responsibility or control.

The 2010 policy set a 3% abandoned call rate, which many organisations still use as a benchmark. The 2016 policy removed any specific rate from its prioritisation criteria, noting that respondents had treated 3% as a safe harbour. It still describes how the rate is calculated: abandoned calls as a proportion of calls, per calendar day, on either a per campaign or per call centre basis, with silent calls, unconnected calls and certain calls to answer machines treated differently. In practice, a low rate supports your position; it does not guarantee it.

Ofcom expects an information message on abandoned calls, played as quickly as possible and no more than two seconds after the call is answered, or after speech starts where detection is used. The message should say who called, explain that they tried to make contact, give a basic rate number to call, and contain no marketing. Ofcom also looks at repeat calls within 72 hours of a misuse and whether a live agent was guaranteed for them, at calls that ring for less than 15 seconds, and at whether records showing compliance are kept for at least six months.

Ofcom's caller ID guidance, applying from January 2025, requires the number shown to be valid and dialable, so it is in service and can be used for a return call, and it must not be an 09 premium-rate number. Calls from abroad using a UK number should be blocked under the same guidance, with narrow exceptions, which matters when an outsourcer or a dialler runs outside the UK. Ofcom treats misuse of caller ID as serious, and a withheld number as an aggravating factor.

For marketing calls, the ICO's guidance says you must not call someone who has told you they do not want your calls, must not withhold your number, and must screen against the TPS and the Corporate TPS: a number registered for 28 days is protected, which is why organisations re-screen at least every 28 days. Automated calls need consent that specifically covers automated calls. Since 5 February 2026, the Data (Use and Access) Act has given the ICO the same level of fining power for PECR breaches as under UK GDPR, and the ICO continues to fine organisations for unsolicited marketing calls.

Genesys Cloud has settings that map to most of these expectations, but several defaults need changing. A predictive campaign's Compliance Abandon Rate defaults to 5.0%, so set it to the rate your policy commits to. The organisation's outbound settings decide which calls count: all calls, including busy and no answer, or only calls that reached the queue. That denominator differs from Ofcom's calculation, so decide deliberately and report on Ofcom's basis separately. The Compliance Abandon Threshold, the time within which a call must reach an agent or a flow, defaults to two seconds.

Genesys's own Ofcom guidance describes the pattern: use auto answer with a persistent connection so calls reach agents within two seconds, play an Architect message that says who called, why, and leaves a number to call back, and configure callback rules so a record abandoned within the previous 72 hours is not redialled unless an agent dials directly. It advises consulting your compliance team before enabling answering machine detection, and warns that blended agents can cause abandoned outbound calls. Preview mode avoids abandonment, progressive mode with precise reservation reduces it, and predictive mode carries the most risk.

Genesys Cloud has no native connection to the TPS. Its built-in do-not-call integrations are US-focused services, so UK organisations load TPS and CTPS data, licensed from the TPS, as internal do-not-call lists, alongside their own objection lists. Plan the refresh carefully: an internal list's expiry date cannot be more than 180 days ahead, records cannot be deleted from a list, and numbers must use the same format as your contact lists. Wrap-up rules can add a contact's number to a campaign's do-not-call list when they object during a call.

Genesys documents just-in-time scrubbing against do-not-call lists when records are selected for dialling, but its pages differ on whether rules, contactable times and do-not-call scrubbing apply to scheduled callbacks, so check the behaviour in your own organisation before relying on it. For calling hours, use contactable time sets rather than the automatic time zone mapping, which is oriented to North American numbering, and include a time zone column when you create each contact list, because it cannot be added later.

QVCCS designs, builds and tests Genesys Cloud outbound campaigns with the rules above built in from the start. We work with your compliance team to agree the abandon rate, message, caller ID, screening and calling-hours policy, then configure campaigns, rule sets, do-not-call lists, contactable times and Architect flows to match, and build reporting that shows abandonment on the basis your policy uses. Testing covers the failure paths too: no agent free, a person mistaken for a machine, a repeat attempt within 72 hours.

QVCCS leadership has worked in contact centre technology since 1984, and every delivery team member holds, or is completing, Genesys Cloud certification. We work remotely unless agreed otherwise. We do not give legal advice, so we work alongside your compliance and legal advisers, and we keep the evidence of how each setting was chosen, because the ability to show your reasoning is exactly what Ofcom's policy rewards.